“Body Art” by Olivia Mayberry from Joining a Community of Readers , 3 rd edition, by Roberta Alexander and Jan Lombardi […] People practice “body art” all over the world and have done so for millennia; decorating human bodies is done to make oneself more attractive, to observe religious beliefs, to indicate one’s social standing, to demonstrate accomplishment, to indicate membership in a certain group, and even to demonstrate rebellion against society. Whether we as individuals like or hate a particular type of body decoration depends on what we have been taught to accept. And what we find acceptable changes over time. The kind of body decoration that we are most familiar with is designed to make individuals more attractive, but in some parts of the world, it’s not what we expect. Women wearing makeup or people having plastic surgery to look younger or to have fuller lips or higher cheekbones are examples of decorative body art that is pretty much acceptable to us today. We are no longer surprised by liposuction, the surgery to remove body fat. Facelifts have become commonplace. The procedure to remove wrinkles by injecting Botox, which paralyzes muscles, is widely accepted. Usually the people who subject themselves to these procedures in the search for beauty are women. But the Wodabe men of the Republic of Niger are more concerned than the women of their

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